


And if you were to unwind

by Anonymous



Category: Nightwing (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics)
Genre: Depression Themes, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Touch-Starved Dick Grayson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:54:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27595105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Dick has been isolating himself for too long again. Donna checks on him and works on piecing her friend back together.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Donna Troy
Comments: 4
Kudos: 69
Collections: Anonymous





	And if you were to unwind

**Author's Note:**

> You know when you haven’t had any form of affection or comfort in so long that u start crying when someone holds a warm hand to ur face? That’s what inspired the fic

“Dick?” Donna stepped into the kitchen, scanning the room for any hint of where the aforementioned man could have gone. She paused as she caught the glass shards on the floor, Dick gazing blankly at them, knees hugged to his chest and arms around himself from his position sat in the corner of the room.

Her shoulders sagged from both relief and sadness. “Oh, Rob. Why did you not call any of us sooner?”

She knelt next to him and separated his warm hands, taking them into her own, leaving behind a red Mark testament to how tight he’d been gripping his upper arms. 

“Let’s get you up, yeah?” She spoke gently, as if Dick was a glass vase with a visible crack down the middle, standing fragile in the face of a single word or touch.

Donna dragged the man up, causing him to blink and shift his gaze over to her, turning slightly more focused than before. 

“Don?” He whispered

Donna tried to respond with what she’s hoped was a comforting smile, but came out as more of a wavery grimace. “Yeah, I’m here, And I’m staying as long as you want me to.”

She supported him as they both walked over to the pullout couch bed, taking care not to step over any broken shards, and the gently lowered him onto one side, which he sagged into as if he was a rag doll. 

She got a blanket from the closet, the thick, blue one she’d often find him wrapped in during cold winter nights he was staying up to finish off Titans case work.

Laying next to him, she spread the blanket over them both, and gently motioned Dick’s head over to her shoulder and tangling their legs together. 

She opened the TV, switching channels till she found one playing a lighthearted documentary about dolphins, and lowered the volume down, using it as nothing more than mindless background noise.

They laid there, Donna running her hands through Dick’s hair as he remained near catatonic, till she felt her shirt growing damp, hours later.

Silent tears were making their way down Dick’s face onto her shirt, his newfound grip on it turning thigh yee and tighter.

“I’m sorry,” he croaked, “I just...I don’t..”

The thing is, each one of the original titans felt a certain way about Dick, ever since they’d first formed the team a lifetime ago. He was the smallest of them, once upon a time, and was still a few inches shorter than the rest. He always held a grief stricken look to his face, eyes looking older than a 70 year old man’s at the mere age of 12 years old. It made them..protective. Not nearly as much as Bruce, of course, but they all felt a much healthier dose of protectiveness when it came to their leader. 

And now, here he was, 10 years later, looking just as small and vulnerable and tragic as that 12 year old Donna once knew. She’d never wanted to take and hide him away from the world more than she did in this moment.

“It’s okay,” she reassured, “Just let it out, love, let it all out.”

They remained like that, Dick quietly sobbing into Donna’s shoulder, which was quickly growing numb, till near dawn, when he finally fell asleep. 

She didn’t know what caused this, but if she had to guess, it’d be a combination of stress, Dick’s usual touch starvation and a really  _ really  _ bad week, and that’s when she decided that need for independence be damned, there was no way she was leaving him to grieve to his his cold, empty apartment any longer. 

Donna placed her head on top of Dick’s, watching the sunrise as she rubbed his arm up and down, vowing to never let him get away with isolating himself for this long ever again.


End file.
